Way back in 2010, I wanted to move to Sydney, Australia.

As an over-confident tech bro, I only applied to the nicest of all the companies hosting local meetups: ThoughtWorks.

Except, as I soon discovered, blindly applying for companies is an exercise in futility. I had to be creative, lacking the social capital to influence their local recruiters.

So, I:

1. Ran multiple Facebook ads targeted at Australian employees the company.

   The advertisement was variations on the salutation, "Dear ThoughtWorks, ..."

   None of the advertising verbage ever allowed for a power differential. "Work with" vs. "work for"

2. Made a website to act as a cover letter.

   This repository is the code for that website.

1. Introduces me
2. Establishes my credentials
3. Proves my credentials
4. Demonstrates alignment in our values
5. Ends with a call to action

Evan, Danielle, and John from Twilio offered me a job, help in my job search, and free credit on their system— all because I gave them a hat-tip and was one of the first people to use their International Dialing APIs. (I've thought "what if..." once or twice.)

Local ThoughtWorks employees started discussing what their collective response should be to me, using the hashtag #dearscott. It ended up trending on Twitter in Sydney, as a result of both the volume of their conversation and other tech workers in the region discussing my advertisement strategy.

A couple days later, I got a call from Thoughtworks Sydney and we arranged interviews.

A few weeks later, I was hired.

Five years later, I quit.

• How To Promote Yourself
• What is this #dearscott all about
• Social Media for Job Seekers Part 3: Lessons Learned